Play --> Live Chess. Chess.com supports many different settings for standard chess. You can select one of several time controls (default is 10 min per player, no increment) or define your own time control (all time controls are time + increment without second or third time controls after X number of moves like in classical chess). When you click Play you go into the pool and are paired with another player looking for the same time control. You can set the range of ELO you will play against and can challenge friends. When you play with a friend you can let the computer set a handicap: it will remove pieces from the stronger player.

Play supports these games:

• Standard chess
• Live960 - Fischer Random, where the back rank pieces are set up randomly (though mirrored with the other player) with some limits. There are 960 starting position combinations hence the name.
• 3 Check - Winner is whomever checks the other King three times. Lots of sacrificing pieces just to get a check.
• King of the Hill - Win is either checkmating the other King or getting your King to one of the four central squares.
• Crazyhouse - Taken pieces can be put back on the board (instead of a regular move)
• Bughouse - Two-player Crazyhouse. Your partner can use the pieces you take on their board.

Chess.com ratings are based on game type and, for standard chess, time control. Bullet is 1 to 3 minutes per player, Blitz is more than 3 to less than 10 minutes, Rapid is 10 minutes or longer. Time = starting time + 40 moves of increment.

Play --> Daily Chess. Here you can play correspondence chess games where it is one more per day (or multiple days). You are allowed to research your game (i.e. consult books) but not use a computer engine.

Play --> Computer. Play against a computer opponent. There are a few dozen of various skill levels or even adaptive (they play better or worse throughout the game to match your level). There are also personality bots: Beth Harmon (from The Queen's Gambit), chess streamers and top players. And you can just play against Stockfish at level 1 to 25.

The bots are not a realistic experience. They tend to play very well and make random blunders with more blunders at lower levels. The personality bots don't really play like their namesakes, though they are programmed with appropriate quips. You used to be able to play the bots for chess.com rating but I guess that got abused, though I did use it myself to get from 1000 to 1300 elo.

Play --> Tournaments. Chess.com has many automatic tournaments of different types throughout the day. A club can also run a tournament for its members or for anyone (and anyone can create a club). There are also special event tournaments: Title Tuesday for titled players, Arena Kings for anyone, and others.

Play --> Four Player Chess. For some reason this is set up as a separate application. 4PC is on an 8x8 board with 3x8 extensions on each side. Each extension has one player. You can play free-for-all in which case the winner is the one that scores the most points (piece value of piece taken and 20 points if you checkmate someone). In a team game the opposite side players are one the same team and the winner is to first checkmate.

Play --> Variants. In addition to the variants in Live Chess and Four Player Chess there are:

• Fog of War - You can't see opponent's pieces unless you can attack them.
• Atomic - When a piece is captured it explodes.
• Horde - One side is just a lot of pawns.
• Chaturanga - An old version of chess where the "queen" moves one space diagonally, "bishops" jump two squares diagonally, and pawns don't get their two-square move.
• Giveaway - Give away all your pieves to win.
• Blindfold - Neither side can see any pieces.
• Capture Anything - You can capture your own pieces too.
• Sideways Pawns - Pawns can move sideways too.
• Torpedo - Pawns can always move one or two squares forward.
• No Castling - Players can't castle.

And yeah, it's kind of bad UI to have different game types spread out in different menus.

(to be continued)